Fall back

Posted: 17 Oct 2025

What creative studios and dev shops (and probably everyone else, too) need to do to stay relevant in the AI era without becoming commoditized slop.

What’s covered:

Your people are your moat · Easy to do, hard to be the best · Quality and simplicity · Never look to others · Don’t ignore the future · What I would and wouldn’t do

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If we are all rushing to be ‘AI-powered’, does ‘AI-powered’ mean anything at all? Or are we all just leaping into a commodity trap disguised as the way forward?

I’ve spent a lot of time this year researching and developing my own conclusions on what digital client service businesses (specifically technical ones) need to do in order to stay relevant in the turbulence that is AI, robots, automation and continued ease-of-entry into the space. The list goes on.

While none of these core challenges are necessarily new, some of the names around them are and the rate of change and the noise around the change is fast and loud.

Many businesses are moving in haste and leaping to what they think Z is before considering steps B, C and D, first. And here’s the thing, we can tell! Fragmented positioning and services, chaotic and inconsistent communication and messaging, words that aren’t backed up by work, to name a few.

Other businesses are sticking with exactly what they’ve been doing, and that won’t work either.

The businesses rising above the rest are the ones that think through B, C, D, etc. and are successfully transforming into this new era.

Here are a few things that I would consider if given the chance to build the agency of the future, today.

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First, while there is a lot of change in the digital atmosphere (especially on the technical side), we could all use a deep breath and some time to remember that it’s all kind of the same, too. As technology advances, we have to realign some things, and if the technology advances quicker than we can realign, we can run into some issues.

But the basics are still in play:

Your people and your brand are your moat.

Doubling down on people, brand and culture is still what sets you apart from the slop. We have more opportunity than ever to be refreshingly human. AI can take our notes, it can take our busy work, it can take our data, and it can give us more room to use our human expertise where it counts most. But if you get this backwards, you’re toast.

You lead, AI assists.

You create your content.

You interact with people.

You lead your sales process.

You lead your projects.

You solve the problems.

It’s easy to do what you do and it’s hard to be the best.

Or, what used to be hard is easy.

It’s easier than ever to pump out digital work and it’s harder than ever to be the best at it. When I started making websites in 2007, it wasn’t very hard to stand out and it took effort to get started. But now, you don’t even need a heartbeat to make websites.

How can you be the best at an activity that everyone everything else can do, too?

You must be exceptional at the things robots can’t replicate:

• The quality of your thinking
• Your judgment and taste
• The humanness in your process
• The depth of your problem-solving
• The relationships and trust you build

Then you must ensure every touchpoint reinforces this. Process, email signatures, contracts, sales communication, project communication, tooling, look and feel, detail of work, uniqueness of problems solved, humanness of your team, all of it.

A robot can pump out slop, but slop won’t keep you in business. And it definitely won’t make you irreplaceable.

Quality and simplicity always win.

As time goes on we tend to add complexity in an attempt to advance. Process on top of process. Services on top of services. Tools on top of tools. Features on top of features. By the end of it, we forget that where we started was good, too. Looking back, version 2 of 100 was actually great.

By finding our way back to simple, we become easier to understand and have more control over the quality of our output.

Never look to others.

Especially in times of drastic change (i.e. now), never look to others. Most companies are going from A to Z and skipping B, C and D. Others are doing nothing. And very few are doing things right. You have experience. You’ve read, you’ve learned, you’ve worked, you’ve won, you’ve lost, you can talk to your customers: that’s the filter you should use for moving forward.

When in doubt, fall back to leveling up expertise, curiosity, uniqueness, approachability, quality and consistency.

This is how to stay out of the commodity trap where everyone turns into a box of flour.

Don’t ignore the future and don’t forget the past.

Technology moves quicker every day. Robots can do things that we used to do and we have to move up the ladder. At the same time, from a bird’s eye view, our businesses are still essentially the same thing as they were before. It’s just that on a range of strategy to sausage, value is moving toward strategy faster than it was.

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Building the agency of the future

So back to the original thought.

What are the few things I would consider if given the chance to build the agency of the future, today?

What I would do

• I would forever paint and repaint the picture of what the best in my niche looks like and I would never stop executing on it. This would be a forever cycle.
• I would double down on being refreshingly human, curious and unique.
• I would position my primary services around future thinking and innovation, while secondary offerings would be the nostalgic basics like websites, apps, etc.
• I would automate transactional and administrative processes so that humans can tackle more complicated problems.
• I would create and share content that communicates how our curiosity, attention to detail and problem-solving is used to make things for our clients that you cannot find anywhere else.
• I would build innovation and ideation into everything we say and do and make.
• I would hire well-rounded makers who are passionate about sharing their expertise over specialists who work in a box.
• I would find the right mix between what made agencies of the past special and what makes agencies of the future relevant.
• It would be easy to understand why you need us, but it would be damn near impossible to compare our output to a competitor’s.
• Every little detail that sees the light of day, or is heard by the light of day, would reinforce all of the above.

What I wouldn’t do

• I wouldn’t manually do administrative work that could be done by a robot.
• I wouldn’t let AI handle sales conversations or relationship-building.
• I wouldn’t go full roboto and hide my team behind the curtains.
• I wouldn’t use AI to generate client-facing deliverables without substantial human refinement.
• I wouldn’t outsource my writing to a robot.
• I wouldn’t put ‘AI-powered’ next to my existing messaging and services to check a box.
• I wouldn’t say, do or make anything that’s anywhere close to what the majority is doing.

To anyone starting day one today, or beginning a rebuild: you’re in for a treat. I’ve spent 18 years in this industry, and agency building never gets old.

Common questions

Is AI going to replace creative agencies?

No. AI will replace agencies that do commodity work. Agencies that focus on strategy, judgment, relationships and solving unique problems will become more valuable. The key is knowing where humans add value and where automation makes sense.

How do I know if I’m falling into the commodity trap?

If your positioning, services or messaging looks like everyone else’s, you’re in it. If you’re adding “AI-powered” to everything without actually changing what you do, you’re in it. The way forward is to build your own path based on your experience, not what competitors are doing.

How do I compete when AI makes it easier for everyone to do what I do?

By being exceptional at what can’t be commoditized. Invest in your people, brand and culture. Automate the busy work. Focus on quality over quantity. Make it easy to understand why someone needs you, but impossible to compare your output to a competitor’s.